


this is the story of zacharias smith

by cosmicwritings



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Other, and other minor characters tbh, but focuses more on the puffs ? ?, mentions of main characters in the series but not that important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 20:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4407107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicwritings/pseuds/cosmicwritings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of a boy who took one look at a broomstick and said "I'm not ever coming down,"; of a boy who rolled his eyes at his friends, but hid a smile when they laughed; of a boy who was scared, plain and simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is the story of zacharias smith

**Author's Note:**

> zacharias smith, aka my actual child. if you want to come and cry about him with me, i indie roleplay him over at loserlurgy on tumblr.

This is the story of a boy who took one look at a broomstick and said "I'm not ever coming down,"; of a boy who rolled his eyes at his friends, but hid a smile when they laughed; of a boy who was scared, plain and simple.

He grows up with the tale of Harry Potter told as a bedtime story, his mother's soft voice lulling him to sleep. He learns of a boy who could defeat He-Who-Must-Be-Named by simply doing nothing.

(Zach doesn't wish he were him, though. He likes being tucked into bed by his mother.)

He stumbles onto his first broomstick when he's young, flinching slightly from his father's loud voice. When he falls off, he hits the ground with a thump, and he can taste the mud in his teeth.

Spitting out the dirt, it takes a split-second hesitation and he's clambering on the broom again.

\--

The Smith family is a long line of Hufflepuffs. Related to the late Hepzibah Smith. Helga Hufflepuff, herself. What do you expect from a descendent?

Zach is proud of his heritage. He is willing to tell people if they wanted to know, but otherwise, didn't flaunt the information around. Who would believe him, anyway? 

The people who know, mostly those from Pureblood families who long ago had to remember each and every other Pureblood to name, say he's only Hufflepuff because his whole family was. He sticks his nose in the air and laughs at those who say it to his face. 

He thought that of himself long ago. When he first donned the yellow and black. His friends finally made him understand that maybe he was a little more.

A Ravenclaw, her nose scrunched as she looks at him in disdain, tells him that he's not kind. How on Earth did he end up with the Badgers?

He sneers back in her face. Kindness isn't a Hufflepuff trait. It's just assumed. 

\--

He's sitting by himself when a red-haired girl slides into his compartment and takes the seat opposite him. He raises his eyebrow, urging her to leave, but she smiles at him.

"I'm Susan Bones," she says, her voice quiet and gentle like the wind. "I want to be in Hufflepuff when I get to Hogwarts; my aunt Amelia was. What about you?"

His voice grumbles as he tells her, but he does it nevertheless. He's pretending he's not listening as she talks softly throughout the journey about one thing or another. 

Zach never had friends when he was younger. He had other children he played with, of course. He had cousins. But never friends, in the same sense. He never wished for them either, never wished for his parents to have another child to give him a sibling. He doesn't know how to deal with anyone other than himself.

(Susan doesn't relinquish her hold on him as friends when they find out they're both in Hufflepuff. It takes him years for him to tell her that he doesn't really mind.)

To his credit, it's not her who forces him to make other friends, also. Perhaps a push. Justin is like an overgrown, annoying puppy. Ernie's pompous ways makes Zach like him least out of them all, but he never once fails to bail them out if they get in trouble, so he guess he has to love him. Hannah's smile can brighten a miserable day. It's three years until he admits they're his friends, but they never falter by his side. It's his own special family now.

By second year, Zach holds a special place in his life to resent Harry Potter. He doesn't care what the other boy says to defend himself, he can still feel the coldness of Justin Finch-Fletchley's hand when he visits him in the Hospital Wing.

\--

He's thirteen when he's good enough for the Hufflepuff Quidditch Team. He tries out his first year, his second year, too. But the Captain always tells him that he's not old enough and not yet experienced. It's Justin who sits on his bed with him as he sulks, and it's Susan's hand he grips in anger every Quidditch game Harry Potter is playing in. 

He's thirteen when Cedric Diggory holds out his hand, congratulating him on flying so well. Zach's hand is sweaty and unable to stop moving in excitement, but he manages to shake it as calmly as his reputation allows him. 

Zach may not be the best player, but he's on the Quidditch pitch as often as he can be. He's early every Quidditch practice, and he stays later than everyone else there. When it's Saturday morning, sometimes Ernie tells the other boys in their shared dorm to shut up and let him sleep a little bit later because he knows the other was practising new drills until midnight. Hannah and Susan alternate times to pass their Transfiguration homework to him over lunch for him to copy, because they saw him talking hours on end to Cedric about tactics and must've forgotten about it. They pretend they're mad when he forgets to ask and sneaks their parchments out of the bags, but they always put it in the front pocket, even though they know it's easier to nick.

When he's got a Quaffle under one arm and focusing on dodging Bludgers, he hears his friends cheering the loudest of all.

\--

Susan is his best friend. 

Every morning she comes from her dorm with her hair already tied neatly back into a single plait. She does not take it out once throughout the day. When he asks her why, she tells him that she saw a picture of her late cousin with the same hair when she was five and she can't bear to part with it. It's second year when they're sitting in the corner of the library, no one else in sight other than the vulture-like librarian, and she takes out of her plait. He pretends it's not a big deal, she pretends it's a normal thing. They both know that that's the progress of their relationship. 

She breathes words, rolling easily off of her tongue. Padma Patil once tells him that Susan doesn't talk much, does she? And Zach has to bite back that she challenged him to a screaming match in the fields last summer, just because she wanted to. Susan won. 

They're sitting on Susan's bed, her short limbs like stumps next to his lanky ones. He's starting to hit puberty and, whilst he has never been particularly short, he's shot up and finds himself owner of overgrown body parts. He is actually rather reasonably pleased with it. They're flicking through an old photo album of hers, him sniggering at an old baby photo of her, when she turns the page and pauses. She's staring at the page with her quiet eyes.

"Who's that?" he asks, because they have no boundaries in their friendship and he wants to know.

"That's my aunt and uncle. Those are my cousins." Her fingers float over the photograph. "That's my dad's older brother, see? You-Know-Who took them away from us during the first Wizarding war."

He doesn't know what to say, Zacharias Smith who has the empathy of a brick, so he clasps her fingers in his and gently turns the page again.

\--

He does not ask Susan to the Yule Ball. He knows that she's waiting for someone she likes to ask her. Namely, Cedric Diggory, but he goes with Cho Chang, and Susan has long accepted that she's not going to be anyone's first choice -- not anyone other than Zach, anyway. At least, that's what she thinks.

Zach goes around, seemingly disinterested in such a petty event. He pretends, for the most part, that he's asleep when the other boys in his dorm are sitting up and discussing who and how to ask dates. He only manages one night of faking a snore, before he swings back the curtains around his bed and listens to them with a feigned annoyed face that no one buys. He gives advice to Justin, who's bashful and nervous about asking Susan -- because he knows Susan finds the boy endearing and funny. Ernie's on his high horse, because he asked Hannah casually when they were studying in the library the first day they heard about the Ball, and she said yes straight away. 

He doesn't ask anyone to the Ball himself. He thinks Padma Patil might be waiting, but he's talked to her twice in class before and both times she called him a twit. He'll see her sitting unhappily next to Weasley later, and he'll think she's stupid enough to have said yes to the redheaded idiot in the first place. Mandy Brocklehurst, he knows for a fact, hadn't got a date yet, but he doesn't ask her either -- not because he doesn't enjoy her company, surprisingly enough, but Zach doesn't really care about these things. He doesn't really think he wants to go, per se, but of course it's Susan who tells him that she refuses to have a good night if he's not there too, and it's for that reason alone that he puts on his dress robes. 

He realises, when he's watching Susan's face blushing bright red at something Justin has said and Wayne Hopkins lifting his Ravenclaw date as they dance, and Ernie's head thrown back in laughter, that it's the fact he's there with all his friends that make the night okay. 

\--

"What's so good about Cho Chang?" Susan asks him one night. It must've just slipped out of her mouth, because she seems just as surprised as he is.

Zach shrugs. But he answers her truthfully, because, really, that's the only way he knows to be around her. "She's good at Quidditch, isn't she? And she's very pretty. And she must be clever, Ravenclaw and all that. I think it'd be a better question to ask what isn't so good about her."

She sighs, low and almost inaudible. "Don't you ever want someone to like you so bad?"

He glances up at her, looking at her long and hard. He shrugs again. 

"I wish Cedric liked me."

And then, his gaze drops to the table again. There's a comfortable silence that falls between the two.

"She is pretty great," she says almost grudgingly, and then -- thoughtless, selfless Susan is back. 

\--

Zach does not cry when he sees his former Quidditch captain lying on the floor, cradled in the arms of a desperate Harry Potter. Instead, he holds a crying Susan -- wonderfully teenage Susan, who nursed a crush on the older boy for four years. Susan, who bats her eyelids to tag along Quidditch practices. Susan, who bores Zach stupid by asking which colour lip gloss he thinks Cedric would notice more. Susan, who buys a 'Support Cedric Diggory' with Zach, not because she hates Harry Potter, but because first crushes always means something. Susan, who he hears mutter a bad thing about Cho Chang once she finds out about the Yule Ball, before seeing his eyebrow raise and spouting apologies profusely, insisting she didn't really mean it.

It's he who lets Susan grip into his skin with her bitten-down nails, the tears running down her face streaming swiftly into the crook of her neck. Ernie and Hannah and Justin are all linked by their hands, the three of them always. They sleep in the Common Room that night, piled on top of each other. After a while, they tuck all the younger kids within the blankets next to them, their arms like shields to their nightmares. Zach wakes with Justin's head by his foot, Susan's messily plaited hair in his face, and his arm flattened under Hannah. There's a first-year curled into a ball in between him and Susan, and he thinks for a moment the dried tear tracks staining his forearm is the little girl's before realising his own eyes are the ones that are damp.

He refers to Cedric in public by his last name. He doesn't know why he does that, and some of the other younger Hufflepuffs look hurt when he does so. But it's easier to accept in front of everyone Cedric's death if he's only another elder boy who happened to be in his house. He doesn't know what he'd do if he's forced to acknowledge that Cedric is -- was -- a friend to him too, who was kind enough to sit up with him late at night in the Common Room to see if he was okay. That's all right. His closest friends know that Zach has his own way of grieving.

In the first DA meeting, he's determined to find out what has happened to Cedric exactly. Dumbledore does not go into the details. Zach thinks that Cedric deserves that much for people to know how he died. Several people shout him down immediately, and not even Susan bothers to defend him. His heart twinges angrily.

Ginny Weasley holds a particular spot of hatred for him. He makes the mistake of pestering her for more details about what's going on with the upcoming war; because, goddamnit, he wants to know what's happening, what's being done, who's safe or not. She hexes him, and he's bitter. He can hold a grudge for ages. Ask Harry Potter.

\--

They're lying on the grass, their heads tilted towards the sun and their feet along the bank of the Lake. It's not just Zach and Susan there, nor just Justin and Ernie and Hannah; it's all of the Hufflepuff lot. Zach is on the end, Susan on his right in a knee-length summer dress. Her red hair is splayed vividly next to Hannah's blonde one, who's giggling with Ernie on her other side. Justin's the furthest in the Lake, the water coming up to his shin, and he's laughing, his head thrown back. Wayne Hopkins is trying to throw Megan in, Lily Moon watching and unsuccessfully trying not to stare. Leanne's plaiting her hair, playing what seems like a game of footsies with Steven Cornfoot. It's like it's their own patch of grass for that moment, with parchment and quills and books and shoes and clothing scattered around them like protection.

Zach sits up abruptly, his fingers playing with the grass strands as he turns to Susan. His words aren't really aimed at Susan, not really, but he knows everyone will hear it anyway (they always do). 

"They laugh at us, you know," he says. His teeth are gritted. As if determined to prove his point, two Ravenclaws walk by and glance back amusedly at the group. "All the other Houses."

"It's because we're Hufflepuffs," Hannah chimes in. She's got a cardigan thrown over face to avoid burning as easily as she usually does, but she peeks out from behind it. "They think we're sheep --"

"Leftovers," Justin calls from the Lake, splashing the water.

Wayne looks up. "No good."

"Not smart, not brave, not cunning," says Lily with a small huff of air.

"Completely and utterly forgettable," Susan concludes. 

There's a silence, minus the soft ripples of the water and blow of the wind. But it's over even quicker than it started: Hannah hides behind her cardigan again, Wayne manages to pull Megan under the water, Ernie bets Justin that he can't hold his breath underwater for over a minute. It's when they're chattering and the noise is dimly loud again does Zach lean forward so that, this time, only Susan really does hear.

"You know," he says, almost absent-mindedly, "I don't think any of you are forgettable."

No one questions why Susan grins, big and wide, before grabbing his hand and pulling him to wade into the Lake with Justin.

\--

When he eavesdrops on Granger telling Ernie and Hannah about this new 'study group' the next year, he tells Susan before anyone else can. He doesn't know what he really expects of her, and he's sceptical when she tells him they should join. He's about to disagree, but her mouth is pursed in the way that her uncle's was in that photograph she showed him ages ago, and he tells her he'll go with her. Because he'd go with her always, he thinks she knows that by now.

Anyway, all his friends are going too. He wants to know what's so special about Potter. 

It's the summer of their sixth year, and he knows things are worse than ever, and he gets a Floo call from Susan halfway through the night. His father yells because it disrupts his sleep, but his mother gets up to answer it and sits in the kitchen with tired eyes. She wakes Zach up, telling him that Susan says it's urgent, and Susan's never called in the middle of the night before so it must be. Susan Bones doesn't overreact over these things. He's in front of the fire in his pyjamas and with bed hair before he can fully register it, and the first thing he realises is that she's crying.

"She's gone," she says. Even with her silent sobbing, her voice is startlingly clear, and he thinks of how that's a lot sadder than it should be. "You-Know-Who killed Aunt Amelia, Zach, she's gone, she's gone, she's gone."

He spares his mother a glance, who waves her hand as if she understands, and he tells Susan to move her head out of the fire, he's coming through. They stand in the middle of her bedroom with their arms around each other until the early hours of the morning and they both can't tell what time it is. 

Dumbledore dies at the end of that school year. Had Zach been anyone else other than himself, he might've wanted to feel some sort of great loss for the headmaster. He didn't. But he keeps that to himself when his friends are all in tears, and his heart isn't heavy when his father comes to escort from the castle the morning after. He thinks about Hannah leaving earlier that year because of her mother being discovered dead, and Susan losing her aunt earlier that year and having to endure everyone's stares. He knows he shouldn't leave Susan and Ernie and Justin, but it's dangerous now and his family are scared. He's scared. He says goodbye to them when they've still all got wet cheeks and his feet drag as he follows his father away.

\--

Hogwarts is different.

Zach doesn't like it.

He gets an owl from Justin the same day the new law is passed -- the one about all students must attend Hogwarts, the one about all Muggleborns needing to register. He doesn't expect his friend to sign up, and he's not surprised when the letter tells him he's going on the run. Justin tells Zach not to write back, because things are dangerous and he doesn't need to be put out of his safety, either. 

Susan turns up hours later, her face impassively strong, and she puts her own letter next to Zach's. Hers is a little damp in the corner. 

Zach and Susan find their own compartment, as per usual, when they get on Hogwarts Express. Everything is so much quieter. Halfway through the journey, Ernie and Hannah enter, their faces telling them how much lonelier it is with an empty space in their compartment. 

Zach, who's a Pureblood -- descending from generations and generations of linage.

Susan, with a magical father who has a family was murdered all those years ago and a halfblood mother.

Ernie, no longer as proud of his family history as he was in their second year, which he was desperately telling Harry Potter all those years ago.

Hannah, technically part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight -- but her Muggleborn mother was killed last year, and she's having to catch up this year to make up for her missed sixth year.

Justin, parents ecstatic about Eton. He couldn't go when he was eleven, and he can't go Hogwarts at seventeen. Life is sad like that. 

\--

Justin is not allowed to come back the following school year. Zach teaches Susan how to breathe again. They keep their distance from each other that year -- at least, the most they ever have had to. Ever since Dumbledore's Army began recruiting again and he decides to stay in the shadows.

\--

His brain is like a whirlstorm, words the colours of a spectrum. No one sees it, though. No one hears it. 

He sinks further into the shadows that the back of the classroom. He thinks again how he shouldn't have taken Muggle Studies. But it's the thought of Justin, who finally wore him down over the summer before his sixth year, into taking it. He said he'd help him. Justin's not here, and Zach's stomach clenches painfully at the thought.

Professor Carrow is at the front of the room, her teeth bared in a grin that resembled too much of a wolf. There are words frothing from her mouth, lies spewing out -- about Muggles, about Muggleborns. A fire is suddenly caught in Zach's throat, anger igniting his bones. 

The 'M' word that is banned so harshly in his Common Room. Ernie's indignant face when he first heard someone say it, Zach and Justin having to grab his arms to stop him from physical fights. Justin's disinterested face when they explained what it meant. 

It's Longbottom -- weak, sniffling Longbottom, who tripped over his feet too often and was a tad chubbier than most -- who stands up, newly found confidence that Zach hasn't heard before in his voice as he spits out insults. Carrow only bares her teeth again and sinks her teeth into her prey, the curses from her wand flying until it's a blur of light.

Zach looks away.

\--

The Gryffindors are always getting praised for their bravery. For throwing themselves headfirst into a fight they will not win, destruction wrecking their paths.

Zach takes a look at all his friends -- of Susan's red hair, shades softer than the Weasleys', but flickers behind her like fire too; of Ernie's grimace, his face never wavering once as he takes hexes meant for first years; of Hannah's wrist, flicking with spells that she once broke down when trying because she felt she couldn't do them; of Justin's grin, like a sudden light as he's fighting with them, a laugh long forgotten in it.

He thinks there are other types of bravery. He thinks each of his friends reflect different types. He thinks he doesn't have any.

He knows that's okay. Not everyone is brave.

\--

He does not join the DA in his seventh year. He is not there to run around rebelliously with Longbottom and Weasley and Lovegood. He was pulled out of school last year, the day following Dumbledore's death, and he is here involuntarily. He is here because he is tied down by the law. 

When his DA coin burns in the bottom of his trunk, he looks up to see Ernie staring at him in the same shocked disbelief from across their dorm. When they run down to the Common Room, they find Hannah and Susan with the same expression. 

"It's Ginny, I bet you," Hannah says. "She's starting it up again. We need to find her."

His three friends are already walking to the door, and they stop when they realise he's standing still where he was.

"I'm not going," he says, his voice firm. 

"Yes, you are, Zach, we're not talking about this again," Susan says, and she walks back up to him to take his hand. There's a rare touch of impatience in her voice. 

"I'm not. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm not going to be caught doing something this stupid, not again." He winces. They're all staring at him. "If you all had sense, you wouldn't be doing this too!"

It's Ernie who speaks, breaking the brief silence. Ernie, Ernie, Ernie -- the little boy Zach met in his first year by telling him not to put shoes on each other's beds, and where did all the years go?

"We're going to help fight for what's right. If you're not going to do this, we'll do this without you," Ernie says stiffly, and Zach's heart cracks that little bit more when he remembers all those times they sat in a circle by the Lake and talked about how they were all in this together.

He feels a tug on his hand, and Susan is looking up at him. Her eyes have always been easy for him to read. He feels his throat close up, but he shakes his head at her. For one single moment, he thinks she's going to stay with him and let them take the fight, but her eyes flicker away and her fingers are pulling away from him.

"Let's go," she says quietly to the other two. It's Hannah who spares him a last look of disappointment over her shoulder. He thinks he hears Susan sniff before she goes, and Ernie has walked out first, as if determined not to look at Zach in the eye.

When they come back, it's like they've all made a silent agreement not to talk about it. They go on as normally as they can with each other, but there's a slight distance there between him and the rest. 

Zach clenches his eyes shut in the night, when he hears Ernie rustling as he sneaks out of the dorm in the late hours. He lies awake until he hears the other boy return -- from a DA mission, he knows -- and, the third time it happens, he mutters, "Fine?"

And Ernie, who's replacing his wand under his pillow again, pauses and replies, "Yeah." They may refuse to talk about it out loud, like a wall in their friendship, but Zach needs to make sure they're being careful, too. They're all he has.

When Hannah sits there at breakfast, looking blankly at her empty plate, he's reminded of all the times she had done the same in their fifth year, panicking over her OWLs. Her hands shake under the table, her eyes jumping from the tiny first years down the other end of the Hufflepuff table to the Carrows at the staff table. He picks up a bread roll and drops it in her plate. He pretends he's eating his own food when she looks up at him and sees it.

He hasn't felt a distance with Susan for a very long time. Not like this. But he's sitting opposite her at the library, or the safety of their Common Room, just like he always has, and they sit in interrupted silences. They talk about classes and people and homework, but they don't talk about anything worth talking about anymore. He knows they can't talk about anything worth talking about anymore if they refuse to even touch on the subject of his cowardice to return to the DA.

He does not stand up for himself, nor anyone else. Not to the Carrows, not to Snape, not to the Slytherins. He does not go out of his way to protect anyone. He watches Ernie, brave and pompous Ernie take curses after curses for first years, his friends, everyone who doesn't deserve it. He watches Hannah, flustered and painfully kind Hannah, break other students out of detention. He watches Susan, quiet and soft-spoken Susan, stand in front of younger students who need shielding and uses her tongue to stop sharp words. He does not do any of these things.

But he tells lost and terrified students which passages avoid trouble, because he understands what it feels like. He makes extra copies of his homework, though not as good now he doesn't have to copy off Hannah and Susan, and leaves it 'accidently' lying around in the library. He reads up on Healing spells, mumbling them under his breath as he heals, not only his own bruises, but also other Puffs' that wince as they sit down. He does not have bravery, neither blatant nor subtle. But he's still a Hufflepuff, through and through, and knows when people need a little help sometimes.

Looney Lovegood is taken off the train during Christmas, and Zach is not there to witness it, but word travels fast with the DA coins everyone except him carries nowadays. Christmas is not Christmas anymore. Susan does not Floo to his at any time over those few weeks. They return to Hogwarts with their spirits just as determined, but remaining unrefreshed. The DA still carries on, even though the girl with lost shoes and words that make them giggle is gone. He thinks she's probably dead now, but he does not mourn. Instead, he remembers how she once annoyed him to no end, that it was she who started all that Loser's Lurgy trifle. 

He is not there in the Room of Requirement when everyone listens to Potterwatch. He does not find out about many things outside the castle walls, anymore. When he asks, his friends are vague about it. He acts as if it doesn't hurt him as much as it does.

Weasley -- the girl, that is, the one who never had the patience to answer his questions -- vanishes during Easter and doesn't return. With both of Longbottom's lieutenants gone, they are disheartened. 

Zach doesn't ask his friends any questions about it now. They go out and paint things on walls, and he sits silently and does his homework. 

When he is questioned on whether he knows about the resurrected DA, he lies to their face. Everyone who knows of him also knows that he's in far too deep to protect himself, far too scared. They let him go with his nose in the air and deceit on his tongue.

\--

It's gone midnight when he's lying on his bed in the dormitory and there is a knock on the door. It's hesitant and quiet, almost as if by accident. He's the only one still awake in their dorm. It's him who gets up and opens the door, to find Susan with her messy plait still in place and night dress on.

"Susan, what're you--?"

And then her whole body weight is flung against him; he can feel the top of her hair tickling the edge of his chin, her arms tightening around his middle. 

"It's Justin's birthday," she says, muffled against his shirt. He feels a tear seep through to his skin. 

He feels his own throat close, his breathing ragged. He moves forward to close the door behind him, but he leaves her hugging him. He lets them stand there for a long time, his legs aching after a while, until her breathing slows to an even pace.

"He's eighteen now. He should've spent it with us," she says softly, weakly. Zach does not reply and, when he feels her clinging loosen, he lifts her up with ease. 

He does not take her into his dorm, because that would be weird. He does not take her into her dorm, because he's not that stupid to go into a dorm full of sleeping girls at three in the morning. So he carries her into the Common Room, laying her down in what he knows to be one of his favourite seats. He Summons a blanket to put over her, another for himself as he curls on another armchair nearby. When he wakes barely two hours later, he finds her staring at the fire with ghost-filled eyes.

\--

He can't remember what's happening exactly, but he's suddenly sitting at the Hufflepuff table again and Professor McGonagall is telling them all that they need to evacuate, there is going to be a fight. The last thing he fully remembers is lying awake, waiting for Ernie to come back to their dorm safely, because if he's safe, so are the rest of his friends. But he's sitting by himself at the table, still clad in his pyjamas with his wand clenched in his hands. He doesn't know where the Carrows are, nor where Snape is, but there are other adults at the front, and he thinks he sees Ginny Weasley there again, with Luna Lovegood and Dean Thomas and -- my God, is that Harry Potter himself? 

Ernie, Hannah and Susan appear out of nowhere -- Susan slipping into the empty space next to him, and the other two opposite. He opens his mouth to ask where they've been, but they've all got determined glints in their eyes. McGonagall is still talking about evacuations, but Ernie stands up suddenly, startling him, and is demanding what would happen if they want to fight. There's a cheer that Zach doesn't join in on, but Hannah and Susan do, and McGonagall gives students of age permission to fight. Zach turned seventeen nearly a year ago, his eighteenth coming up in a mere few weeks.

The evacuation process begins, starting off with the Slytherins and first years, when Susan grips his arm suddenly. 

"Please tell me you're fighting," she says, her voice clear even over the din. Her eyes bore into his and he cannot pull away. "You're staying, aren't you, Zach? You're not going to leave?"

He does not say anything. He does not need to. She can read him like an open book at times.

"Zacharias Smith, you are not going to run!" She's shouting, and he flinches away, shocked. Susan does not shout. Not at Zach, not at him. Never at him. Hannah and Ernie's eyes snap to them, startled. "You are not going to run on me now! You can't do this, you can't, you can't!"

McGonagall is calling for fourth years to leave now.

"Goddamnit, we're in this together, Zach! We said so, all those years ago!" There are tears in her eyes, staining her face, and he is desperate to stop it, but he knows the only way he can is something he cannot do. "Think about us, Zach! Think about Justin! You can still fight now, it's not too late!"

"What do you want me to say, Susan?" he says, and there's a role reversal now -- he is whispering and she is shouting. 

"Say you'll fight!"

Sixth years are filing out now, they're running out of time.

"You know I can't," he says, and she cries harder. The anger is suddenly lost in the air. She raises her arms, standing on her tiptoes to wind around his neck, and she's leaning into him, crying and crying. He does not to do anything except hug her back.

"Don't die," he tells her, pulling back. It's the last call for evacuation, she's wiping her nose, and he's leaving. He looks up at Hannah and Ernie. "You guys, too. No one die, take care of each other. I'm sorry." And it's not an I Love You, but it means the world coming from him.

He kisses Susan on the forehead, and he's running out of the Hall, following younger students alike. His eyes are wide and panicked, and he stops when he reaches the jostling crowd on the way to the Room of Requirement. It's a blur of uniform robes and coloured ties, but he spots a familiar face. She's standing stock-still.

"Brocklehurst, what the hell do you think you're doing?" he says loudly, when he reaches her. 

"I don't know whether to fight. I don't know if I should go." Her eyes stare blankly at a wall, turning to focus on him.

And Zach thinks. Morally, he should tell her to fight. Morally, they need as many soldiers as they can get. But his best friend is fighting out there, two of his other closest friends are on the grounds fighting tonight, and it's selfish, but he doesn't want to possibly lose another one. Screw morality. "Don't be stupid. We need to go, now. We're all going to die here, otherwise. Come on." 

And he pushes her in front of him, urging her to walk, and they're leaving the Battle, the war, in theory. He's going to be hissed at for being a coward for the rest of his life, but he thinks running away from Death is not cowardice, but surviving.

\--

Justin Finch-Fletchley's name is printed in a long list of the deceased in The Daily Prophet. His mother has the newspaper held in her tiny hands, and she starts to read names off. There are so many he recognises, but he doesn't know what to say or what to do so he's sitting there in silence and listening to it. He's waiting for the names of Susan, of Hannah, of Ernie. Not one of his friends made contact once the Battle was over to confirm they're safe. He doesn't really expect them to, but it would've been nice.

When his mother gets to Justin's name, she pauses before saying it aloud. She stops again, looking up at her only son. There's silence, and he still does not say anything. She carries on reading, and he waits until the end. When she's done, she puts down the newspaper, folded, on the table. He stands up and kicks the wall so hard, he leaves a hole. He retreats into his room after that. 

He does not leave his room for a long time. He doesn't do much, but stare at the ceiling. And he remembers. All he does is remember.

He remembers the time Justin jumped into his bed, claiming he's going to sleep there for the night. Zach threatened to kick his arse. 

He remembers staying up to the early hours of the morning, having pointless discussions with Justin that he really doesn't mind.

He remembers trying to be taught how to use a shitty television one summer, because Justin claimed it would help in Muggle Studies.

He remembers sitting opposite Justin in the library, who had his eyes wide and nervous. He knew that the boy was expecting Zach to laugh, but he adopted a serious face and gave all the advice he knew to win over Susan.

He remembers one of the last conversations he truly, really held with Justin. They talked about the war, and sticking together, and surviving. They talked about living.

He remembers thinking Justin is -- was -- like a brother. Zach never had a sibling, but he thinks that he's the closest he's probably ever had to one.

He remember a thousand and one things, and it hits him with the same feeling of a crashing wave that he won't be able to see or tell him these things. He won't sit opposite him and talk about anything anymore, he won't watch his friend get married or have kids. And Justin won't be able to do any of these things. 

Zach doesn't know why he does this, but he closes his eyes and starts to hold his breath. Because he does not cry, he cannot cry, he will not cry. 

He manages a full minute until he's hit back with reality, his hands gripping the edges of his bed covers.

\--

There's a funeral and, despite not wanting to, Zach attends. He thinks he owes Justin at least that much. He does not sit in the second row -- where Susan and Ernie and Hannah and all of the other Hufflepuffs sit, behind Justin's immediate family. There are several empty spaces in that row, which he recognises immediately as spaces for the fallen who also died and cannot attend, but there's a gap between Susan and Ernie, and he also knows that that is meant for him.

He holds his breath again and stands at the back, in the corner and shielded from view. They will talk about how he never went to pay his respects later, and he will not care.

He does not cry at the funeral and he goes home the moment the service finishes. When his mother asks him how it went, he doesn't answer her. It's only then he is able to rifle through his trunk, of anything he can salvage that is related to his deceased friend. He finds quills and empty inkbottles, parchment with scribbles of notes in class passed to each other. Tucked underneath one of his own robes, there's a crumpled t-shirt with a Muggle band stamped on the front. He realises it must've been accidently thrown in there when they were hastily packing at the end of their sixth year. He picks it up, folds it and puts it on his bed.

He sits on the floor of his bedroom and reads through each of the parchments, letters sent over the holiday. His fingers pause at one of them, holding it in his palm as he reads:

Dear Zach,  
Enjoying your summer, are you? Sorry I'm on holiday at the moment, I was looking forward to meeting with the rest of you over the holidays. I'm sending letters to all the others as well, as I write this, but it's not the same. Your last letter nearly gave my grandfather a heart attack, did you know? The owl flew through the window and nearly smashed into his head. Don't worry, we blamed his poor eyesight.  
Have you got your fifth year books, yet? I got my Hogwarts letter a couple of days ago, and I'll be back tomorrow. I was wondering if you wanted to go as a group and get them, it’d be nice to catch up before we go back to school. Is Susan doing all right? I've been writing to her, too, but I just wanted to make sure.   
Write back quickly, if you can be bothered. Owls take forever, and I want to know what you think before I come back tomorrow. I'll be returning by plane, and I don't even want to think of what will happen if an owl catches up with us when we're flying through the air. See you soon!  
From, Justin  
PS. I still don't get why you won't get a phone. It's much quicker, you know.

He laughs, tears making rivers down his face, until his stomach feels like it's going to split.

He would know about that feeling. It was Amycus Carrow's disgusting half-sneer as he raised his wand that made Zach gag.

\--

That night, he takes one of the bottles of Firewhisky his father keeps under the sink and finishes the bottle in a go. It's probably not the greatest idea ever, but he Apparates without thinking, and it's by a miracle that he only Splinches himself by losing two toenails.

No one finds him sitting with his back against the gravestone of a boy who died too brave and laughed too loud. No one finds him with tear tracks staining his cheeks. No one finds him muttering the same words over and over again under his breath:

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

\--

A girl who speaks with her voice quiet and gentle like the wind comes back from a funeral of one of her childhood loves. There's an owl sitting on her bed. It drops a package in her lap when she sits, her fingers damp from her tears. She opens it with shaking hands and a t-shirt falls out first. She finds a scrap piece of parchment tucked under it, bearing only the words 'It was his'. The writing is rushed, shaky at parts, and slopes in a slanted direction, but she could recognise the handwriting in a heartbeat.

The fabric slips between the soft pads of her fingertips, and then she's hugging it, holding it close to her chest. She breathes in deeply and is subsequently hit with the fresh essence of Justin -- as if he just took it off and threw it on the armchair in the Common Room she picked up. She's overwhelmed and she's crying, crying, crying, and she thinks that life should have been so much more than burying people she loves and losing others.

\--

In this story, there's no happy endings, but there's no sad endings either. There's only life.

In this story, Zach will reconcile with his friends. But this will takes months, years. In this story, Zach will be called names by all his former classmates. He will be branded a coward, will be spat on by people he once called friends. In this story, Zach will raise his chin, his upturned nose sticking higher up in the air, and he will not care. 

In this story, Zach was not willing to die for Harry Potter. He was not willing to fight in a war that was made for something so much bigger. Maybe once upon a time, he was fifteen and decided that it wouldn't hurt to try. But that was before his best friend's aunt died, and his friend's mum died, and his other friend was forced to run to avoid being thrown in jail for something he has no control over -- that was all a lifetime ago. He was seventeen when he watched his friends run headfirst into the arms of Death. He wasn't ready to do the same.

In this story, Zach will go on with his life, people be damned. Justin's ghost will still haunt him, Cedric's just the same. He will find understanding in Mandy Brocklehurst, who never joined the DA but still ran away from the battle too, who will never judge him for saving himself. His Puff friends will forget that he was always the realist in the Common Room, because it was him who saw the world how it was. Harry Potter will not hold grudges against him, but Ron Weasley will mutter 'git' every time they pass each other in the Ministry. Granger will wrinkle her nose and talk to him in clipped tones. The youngest Weasley will still threaten to hex him if he gets too close. Looney Lovegood will walk into his shop and tell him that she forgives him. Longbottom will refuse to look him in the eyes. Ernie will let his anger, his pride, blind him for a few years before they will bump into each other in Diagon Alley and end up spending the rest of the day talking, realising too late how they missed one another's presence. Hannah will pretend everything doesn't hurt as much as it does when Zach walks into the Leaky Cauldron to order a Firewhisky and doesn't say a word about the years they've lost together.

And Susan?

Susan will write letters to him that he will not respond to. He will not mean it in a particularly horrible way. She will understand that. They will spend a year rebuilding the friendship that got damaged within the castle walls of their school. It will take Zach fifteen months and four days for them to visit Justin's grave side by side. It will take him less time over the years to do so again. 

Almost a decade later, Ernie will ask him to be Godfather to his child. Zach will know that that space would've gone to Justin had he been here, but he will accept it anyway. He will visit the baby regularly. Susan will make fun of him because of how much he had always said he disliked children, and he will let her as he teaches the child how to fly. Zach will learn to tolerate Longbottom when he visits Hannah. He will trip on plant pots lying around and poke fun at her running a pub. 

They will not all grow up. Justin will be buried six feet below, and Susan will still cry in her sleep sometimes, and Hannah will hold her stomach as she tells him that she will never be able to have children. They will all spoil Ernie's child silly, because they want to shield it from the things they all faced. But they will all visit Justin's grave, and Zach will hold Susan in her sleep until she stops, and Neville Longbottom will become a professor to a school full of children for Hannah to love. 

The war will leave them broken, but they will heal. Their Hufflepuff group won't be the same, but they will try. They will not tell their children why their hands shake, or why their wands are always tucked in their sleeve, or why they put up wards around their homes. 

\--

Zach did not have any friends before he was eleven. At Hogwarts, he found a whole family. Before he finished school, he'd lose them all once again. But family will be family, and he always forgets that.

This is the story of a scared, little boy. This is the story of a man who only had space in his heart for his friends, and not much else.


End file.
